


Name

by TheEmpressAR



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Loneliness, M/M, Past Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 11:26:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17559503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEmpressAR/pseuds/TheEmpressAR
Summary: Just a song-fic.  Possibly an outside connection to the "Say Something"  Series.Story Song:  Name - Goo Goo Dolls





	Name

**Author's Note:**

> This is loosely based around episodes 2 and 3. Canon-esque but not fully ;) I caught a little bunny that wouldn't let me go after seeing Libertinepast's post about a Lonely Daniel on Tumblr and just thought I'd get something out that was in my head. I have sooo much going on in my head right now...battling for what wants to come out first. I am going by what pops out of my fingers first...LOL!!
> 
> I hope you all EMPjoy!! This is a sad little piece...but I'm in a sad little mood! So it's ALL GOOD!!

*credit goes to the screencappers.  I believe @libertinepast and @cutseynamehere on Tumblr.  Thank you ladies!!

  
_**And even though the moment passed me by** _  
_**I still can't turn away** _  
_**'Cause all the dreams you never thought you'd lose** _  
_**Got tossed along the way** _  
_**And letters that you never meant to send** _  
_**Get lost or thrown away** _

  
_"Kicks get Chicks..."_

  
"Well we were just gonna go talk to them but yeah...maybe taking karate lessons from a stranger in the park is a better strategy..."

  
Johnny looked at the two young boys as they mocked him and continued playing ball. Laughing. He took off his headband.

  
It had been that kind of a day. He started out strong. Just wanting to get his dojo off the ground. The excitement he felt, the need to matter...to make a difference when he started this whole thing, quickly dissipated when the realization began to sink into him. This world was not how he remembered it.

  
He supposed it was from all the years of drinking. Tuning out. Giving up. Not paying attention as the world moved on around him. Without him. He hadn't made an effort before. He didn't know what it was like.

  
Now things were different. People were rude. They were mean. They didn't care. He didn't care. For the longest time he just lived on the outside looking in.

  
He didn't realize just how lonely he was until he kicked some ass over a boy getting bullied at the mini mart. When the kid moved into the building he knew something significant was going to happen. He just didn't know when.  
Now the kid had him amped up into actually thinking he could be something again. Be somebody. Be who he tried to be all along. He was finding out what a pipe dream really looked like.

  
No one cared about a washed up functioning drunk. It was like he was the laughingstock of a joke he just didn't get. He wanted to be in on it. He had no idea what was so funny. Walking around the town that day...putting up flyers...trying to hand them to people. Just getting on their level. He never felt more alien in his life. More alone.

  
He remembered how he used to be in high school. Everyone loved him there. Johnny Lawrence. Prom King. Johnny Lawrence. Rich Kid. Johnny Lawrence. Had whatever he wanted. But did he? Johnny Lawrence was alone. He had no girl and then no title. That year marked the beginning for him.

  
After several more disappointments, he went back to his rundown apartment and stood in the doorway. He looked at the garbage on the floor. He looked at the countless beer bottles making their unique display on the coffee table. He looked at his ratty furniture. He looked at who he was. This was who he was. This was who he had become. He took off his jacket and went to his chair and slumped down in it. He looked at the room as it grew dark outside. He was helpless to change things.

  
He didn't know how long he sat in that chair. He was feeling sorry for himself. Usually, he just went at things in a comforting state of denial. That he didn't believe he did all things to himself. That he could change his fate if he put his mind to it. Today...today taught him that all his thinking was shit. Today proved to him that he was just as much of a loser as he'd been told for years and years. He angrily brushed a tear away and went for his remote. He grabbed a half-empty can of flat beer from the coffee table and chugged it. Maybe this all was just a bad idea.

  
He flipped on the TV and the first thing he saw was another LaRusso Auto commercial. He wanted to scream. He couldn't look at that face anymore. Was karma really that much of a bitch that she couldn't just let him have one...one moment of peace? He studied LaRusso's face as he tried to ham him with a sales pitch. He wanted nothing more than to punch him right at that very moment.

  
If he was honest with himself...which it seemed to be the night for honesty. He really missed standing on the mat with him in his dojo. To see his face. To watch him threaten him. To insert himself back in his life whether he wanted him to be there or not. He seemed to be doing it a lot lately. First, with his car. Now with his threats. He had a small pull somewhere in his heart that made him long for another interaction. Another chance to talk. Was he that fucking lonely?

  
Yes...yes he was.

  
_**And now we're grown up orphans** _  
_**That never knew their names** _  
_**We don't belong to no one** _  
_**That's a shame** _

  
Daniel LaRusso snuck into his daughter's bedroom. He tried to ignore the laptop on her bed. He wasn't going to listen to that jerk. He wasn't. All these years? All the time that had past? He was going to give weight to whatever Johnny Lawrence had to say? He was just as nuts as Johnny was. Still. He was very protective of his daughter. He didn't want to think of her in any situation with any boy. Let alone a boy who...(looking at the laptop and breaking his fatherly oath to privacy) wanted to show her something "BIG". He wasn't prepared to handle that. He wasn't prepared to admit that Johnny may have had a point. He was a man himself. He knew...or at least he thought he knew what kids had on their minds these days. It couldn't have been much farther from what was on most guys' minds back in his day. He looked helplessly to the bathroom door where she was showering. How did he tell her? Would he tell her. What should he do? He didn't want her...his daughter....to be around any of the wolves banging down his doors. He knew they were out there waiting to snatch her up. He saw them with his own eyes as he kicked them out of the pool. None of them matched up...in his eyes.

  
Amanda had almost caught him snooping and hurried him out of the bedroom. But he was not happy. He was restless. He paced his bedroom floor. He kept thinking about what Johnny had told him. What he knew to be true. He wished he had a friend to talk to. Someone who understood him the way he did. He had to reflect and think back. Did he have anyone? Louie? Hell no...Anoush? He was far too young and mixed up with the politics of today. He wanted to claim that he knew the ends and outs about today's society. Up with the times...and all that jazz. But when it came down to it. He didn't know a damn thing. And truthfully...he didn't want to know. He longed for simpler times. Flashes of his old apartment with his Ma invaded his brain and he had to stop and shake his head. He had everything he could ever want right now. Money. Luxury cars. A family. A rich lifestyle that he was so envious of as a teenager. Johnny Lawrence's life. He paused.

  
He looked at himself in the mirror. Johnny Lawrence's life? That's who he measured himself up to? The tired, sloppily dressed man in a smelly dojo in a strip mall in Reseda? The one that spoke more truth to him in a few sentences than he had heard in years...not since...Miyagi. How did he do that? He hated the man...or at least he thought he did.

  
As he stood there looking at himself in the floor-length mirror a strange form of panic crept its way into his veins. He began to tremble. No one was in the room with him. No one was in the wing of the house with him. No one was there for him. He began to shake. He was always like this. Was it a lie? Was it a joke? The man he wanted to be like a broken thing that he beat...over and over and over and now that he "won"...did it even make a difference? What did he do now? Did he ever really know why?

  
Johnny didn't come back into his life without a reason. The car. The dojo...his need to find out why Kyler and his friends were beat up by him. The need to insert himself back into the picture. What did it mean? He snapped out of his reverie. He needed to ask the man himself.

  
He ran from his bedroom. He had the number somewhere. Why did he keep it? Why did he write it down from the work order when he brought his piece of shit car in to be fixed. Why did he think about programming it into his phone and then have to force himself to change his mind. He went to his office and shuffled some things around on his desk. He had the sticky note there somewhere in his planner...he still kept one of those and didn't upgrade everything to the computer. He still had a few ghosts he clung to from his past. He flipped a few pages...pretending not to remember that he had tucked it away on the last couple of pages. He punched in the numbers as he had done before. His hand hesitated over the send button.

"What?!"

  
(Silence)

  
"I know you're there...what?!"

  
"What did you mean...'Get my house in order?'"

  
"Damnit, LaRusso...are we gonna do this...now?"

  
"You got other things on your schedule? Sorry if I'm interrupting your busy evening."

"Cut the bullshit."

"You first."

  
"You called me...remember?"

  
"Yeah...and I'm beginning to regret that decision...goodbye, Johnny."

  
"WAIT...no...wait! Don't hang up."

  
"That sounded pathetic..." (laugh)

  
"No more pathetic than you threatening me at my dojo."

  
"You beat up some kids."

  
"I thought we went over that...those kids deserved it."

  
"No kids deserve getting their asses kicked by an older man who should know better."

  
"Yeah well we all live and learn don't we."

  
"Some of us more than others."

  
"Did you call to gloat or something? I got better things to do with my time than to hear you bitch me out over what I should and shouldn't do with my life."

  
"I want to see you."

  
"What...wait...WHAT??"

  
"Did I stutter?"

  
"No...I just had to make sure I didn't fall into The Twilight Zone. The "Great" Daniel LaRusso...king of the automotive industry in Los Angeles...requests my company. To what do I owe the honor?"

  
"If you're gonna be a dick about it, I'll just hang up the phone."

  
"Alright...alright...I'll bite...why did you call?"

  
"I just...I dunno...Johnny...lately...I've been thinking. I...ever since we've bumped into each other...I just started...thinking about things. Thinking about my life...ya know? Thinking about how...I...I...shit...this isn't fucking easy, man."

  
Johnny could hear the catch in Daniel's breath and the tell-tale signs of someone about ready to lose it. The load the man must have on his shoulders. Johnny remembered the kind of kid he was in high school. High strung and took everything too damn serious.

  
"Calm down, LaRusso. Don't get your panties wadded up."

  
"That's rich, Johnny. I'm serious."

  
"I know you are. Let's meet somewhere."

  
Now it was Daniel's turn to be taken aback. "Meet? Like now? Like right now?"

  
"No...two weeks from now. Yes...right now! I know you probably have board meetings and dinners to attend...but again...you called me so I think your calendar must be clear."

  
A sigh. "Yeah...nothing's really going on...just gotta chaperone my daughter's Halloween party...but right now I'm free."

  
"Good. Meet me."

  
"Meet you where? And I never agreed that I would."

  
"You will...and go to that spot on the beach where I kicked your ass."

  
"What?! All the way out there? Tonight? Johnny you really are nuts, man."

  
"I know it...but what have you got to lose, right?"

  
Daniel sighed over the receiver. He didn't know what the hell he was thinking. He just knew that somewhere inside of him he knew he wouldn't refuse anything that Johnny told him to do.

  
"When?"

  
"Now's as good a time as any..."

  
"I'll have to ask Amanda if I can be out later tonight."

  
Johnny laughed on the other end of the phone. He had known what that feeling was like and was glad he wasn't bound to permission anymore.

  
"Go on then, good boy...just let me know what she says and I'll see you out there...in an hour."

  
"You seem pretty sure she'll say yes."

  
"Either way. Later LaRusso."

  
_**And scars are souvenirs you never lose** _  
_**The past is never far** _  
_**Did you lose yourself somewhere out there** _  
_**Did you get to be a star** _  
_**And don't it make you sad to know that life** _  
_**Is more than who we are** _

  
An hour later Johnny found himself kicking at an old piece of drift wood that got stuck deep into the sand when the tide went out. He looked around and noted near the exact spot where more than thirty years earlier he had shown LaRusso who was the boss and who not to mess with or take what belonged to him. Flashbacks of him eating sand, bloodied and bent over made Johnny shake his head now. What if things had gone another way? Would their futures have ended up the same? Would they have been friends? He didn't think so...even if he had never met Daniel LaRusso they were not meant to cross paths. He was rich and LaRusso was poor. There wasn't a more defining line than that.

  
"I didn't know you were a sucker for reminiscing." Daniel said quietly coming up behind him on cat's feet. They were even quieter in the sand. Johnny was caught off-guard. He swung around with his fists up.

  
"Whoa...whoa...calm down."

  
"Didn't anyone ever tell you not to sneak up on people?"

  
Daniel came up to stand beside Johnny. He looked at the same spot Johnny had and then at the man himself. The same images were playing in his mind.

  
"Some night huh..."

  
"Yeah."

  
"Did you ever think...?" Daniel started then stopped. He put his hands in the pockets of his slacks. He hadn't bothered changing out of his suit from the day, he just had no jacket and tie on and the first few buttons of his shirt were opened. The wind had picked up and he had wished that he now had brought a sweatshirt.

  
Johnny turned to look at Daniel. He was vulnerable now. He wasn't acting his cocky arrogant _'I-want-to-sell-you-a-car'_ douche bag he had become lately. He almost saw a few traces of the boy he had left behind.

  
"Yeah...I think about it all the time." Johnny said putting his own hands in his pockets and walking off down the beach. He didn't wait for Daniel to catch up.

  
_**We grew up way too fast** _  
_**And now there's nothing to believe** _  
_**And reruns all become our history** _  
_**A tired song keeps playing on a tired radio** _

Daniel walked several paces behind Johnny with his hands deep in his pockets. He had a hard time navigating the sand in his expensive shoes. He didn't really give much thought to what he was thinking coming out here like this. He looked at the man in jeans ahead of him. He wanted to run up to him, shake some sense into him and make him see how empty both of their lives had been. Same place. Same time. Same lives. Different outcomes. Neither of them had moved on. Both of them had the same holes...the same emptiness inside.

  
"What are we doing, Johnny?"

  
"I guess we're walking on a beach."

  
"Shut up, wise ass." Daniel tried to be serious but still a chuckle escaped.

  
Johnny turned to face him. He looked at him. He really looked at him. They both stayed that way for over a minute.

  
"My daughter...she's uh..." Daniel started.

  
Johnny turned to start walking again...slower this time. He let Daniel walk beside him, brushing shoulders just enjoying the company and hearing the sound of another person's voice. Someone that actually understood the reasoning behind doing some of the things he did.

  
"You knew didn't you?"

  
"There's a lot of things you don't know about your kid, LaRusso."

  
"What's that supposed to mean?"

  
"I just mean you two should talk...talk about the friends she keeps. But all you LaRusso's are the same...she's probably right where she needs to be."

  
Daniel stopped and turned to shove Johnny in the shoulder. "The hell are you talking about? I didn't come out here to get my family trashed. Why are you such an asshole?"

  
"Takes one to know one I guess." Johnny said facing him...getting worked-up.

  
"Why'd I think this was a good idea to come out here again?" Daniel said turning to walk back to his car. He dismissed Johnny with his hand and began trudging back through the sand.

  
"You're just as lonely as I am...LaRusso...that's why!" Johnny said trudging after him...not wanting to let that be the final say of the night. Not wanting to let him get away without knowing what the last 30 years had been like for him.

  
"You're full of it, Lawrence...and I'm going home...to my family. Who are you going home to?"

  
"You're a bastard. That's a pretty low blow from someone who stole everything I had away from me. My girl. My title. My life. Yeah I know you...you copied everything from me. You wanted to be me. You left me nothing in return."

  
"Anytime you wanna go, Johnny...I'm right here. You wanna get back some of yours? You earned it I think..." Daniel put up his hands.

  
"I don't wanna "go" with you. I just wanna know why."

  
"Why what?"

  
"Why me? Why did you choose me?" They were standing in front of one another again. Thirty years between them. A huge chasm of hurt and emotion and empty loneliness to in the gap.

  
"You were there."

  
"You used me."

  
"You never were the only "bad guy" in this scenario. I just looked more vulnerable and cute."

  
"Asshole."

  
"When are we gonna move past all of this?" Daniel said indicating the air space between them.

  
"I don't know if we ever can...there's just too much collateral damage between us."

  
"But we're still here."

  
"We'll always be here...in this time."

  
"When are you going to join our time?" Daniel said laughing at Johnny's outdated outfit the headband back around his head.

  
"You know me...I just have a look that screams 1984. Let's go get a beer alright?"

  
"It's late."

  
"One or three won't hurt your curfew, Danielle."

  
"Sigh...yep...still living in the past."

  
"Come on...there's a lot to catch me up on."

  
They both walked off the beach together in companionable silence. For once both of them felt less empty...less hollow...less broken....less alone.

  
_**I think about you all the time** _  
_**But I don't need the same** _  
_**It's lonely where you are, come back down** _  
_**And I won't tell 'em your name** _


End file.
